Roger Bourland
writes about music and life

Here is an image from a new collection by artist/designer Mate Steinforth. His website, beautifully made, is called Mate Universe and shows off his brilliant eye for color, design, and proportion.

Here is a marvlously raw and gritty video of Elvis singing “Hound Dog.” His moves titillated a generation of hormone popping teens, and younger. I remember this song so well as a little boy. I remember slicking my hair back and doing an Elvis impersonation for one of my baby sitters. As far as I […]

A famous Gram Parsons/Chris Ethridge song from the Flying Burrito Brothers first album, “Juanita” sung here by Gram’s champion, Emmy Lou Harris and the fabulous Sheryl Crow.

Here is one of the most popular videos that bloggers post. Some bossy queen trapped in a Filipino prison convinced the prison warden to turn the prison into a movement class. So much fun!

I went to a party for our good friend Steve, just back from 6 months away, doing special effects for an upcoming movie about John Adams (the president, not the composer). During the party, he kept a looping slide show in the living room of candid snapshots of various places they worked around the world. […]

I include this video as a kind of blog bookmark in my Rufus Wainwright research. It was captured by someone watching TV in a hotel room and filming it with a video camera. On the TV is Loudon Wainwright III on NBC, show not identified, playing with an unidentified duo (a black man on bass […]

A fascinating find is Ian Andrews’ video “A Million Angels.” The various comments from the people on YouTube talk about it in warm and fuzzy way (”those ‘old’ clips” and “a classic”) so I guess I missed this one when it first came out. I found the music annoying on first listen, but “got it” […]

Alden Ashforth bought a gavel some years back for the Chair of our department at that time, Tom Harmon, and I have inherited it in my new capacity as the new Chair. I guess I’ll use it if people start shouting and have to bang it against the table shouting “ORDER! ORDER!” Hmm, doesn’t really […]

Some Dutch dudes do a Dalcroze duet.

Here is a video guaranteed to put you in a perky mood. It’s one of those “gosh life is great and my diet pills have just kicked in gosh darnit I’m gonna clean this place.” Which is what? A school room? So this is a video about a female highschool janitor fantasizing about something? And […]

I’m sure you’ve read those little articles that show how various combinations of vinegar, baking soda, eye of newt and wing of bat can clean almost anything in your house. Back in the 1960s, there was a craze to scrape banana peels and smoke it, in hopes of getting high. I don’t remember trying that, […]

A mesmerizing work by American composer Frederic Rzewski beautifully performed by pianist Roger Wright. Alden Ashforth told me once that Rzewsk had the first score of Webern before anyone else did in the US. This would be the early 50s. Randall Thompson would have nothing to do with it, nor Walter Piston. Harrumph.

An excellent and faithful cover of Gram Parsons and Chris Etheridge’s song “She.” Norah does a great job, but there is a heart wrenching passion in Gram’s peformance that is unique to him. A tasty song; should become a standard. Maybe Nora will make it so.

Glenn Gass, my old friend from the New England Conservatory of Music in 1978, visited with his wife Julie on Friday. After spending a blessed year on Kauai, they returned to the mainland with their two boys by going directly to Disneyland (ouch). Glenn called me once and left a message from that magical city: […]

A few months back I got a ticket for sailing down the mountain from Lake Arrowhead, singing at the top of my lungs, oblivious that I was speeding. The phenomenon is called “velocitization.” Deveyesh Mistry writes in the blog Tips for Driving:
Wondering what Velocitization is? It’s the basic feeling you get when driving at a […]